Deathfire - Shadows Over Riva Cover

July 2nd, 2013, 04:30

Guido Henkel has a new post on his Deathfire Blog and gives a little treat for die hard Realms of Arkania fans.

While cleaning up my hard drive just now, I stumbled across a neat image that I thought I’d share with you. Here, for the first time, I assume, is a look at the original artwork for Shadows over Riva without any logo and without any cropping. This is the artwork that as it was delivered to us by Ugurcan Yüce, the artist who created the artwork not only for our Realms of Arkania computer role-playing games, but also for virtually all of the “Das Schwarze Auge” pen&paper games the “Reams of Arkania” games were based on.

Ugurcan is not only an incredibly talented artists but also a very nice guy and I remember visiting him in his home numerous times, watching and admiring him at work while his wife would serve me traditional Turkish treats. At Attic Entertainment Software, we commissioned the covers for many of our games from him, not only the “Realms of Arkania” games, but also covers for titles such as “Fears” and “Der Druidenzirkel.”

Most strikingly, every time Ugurcan did a cover for us, he was nice enough to actually allow us to keep the original paintings for good. This is something very few artists will ever do—or only at a significant cost—and shows you just what kind of a guy he is.

Anyway, I thought I’d share this little gem with you real quick because I know there are many die hard Realms of Arkania fans out there. Enjoy!

Still have the original box of Riva… and talking about Realms of Arkania there's a gameplay trailer for the remake of Blades Of Destiny: http://www.vg247.com/2013/06/05/real…-june-release/. And they say release end of June, which was like a few days ago… Anyone hear anything more recent?

Originally Posted by Roq
Still have the original box of Riva… and talking about Realms of Arkania there's a gameplay trailer for the remake of Blades Of Destiny: http://www.vg247.com/2013/06/05/real…-june-release/. And they say release end of June, which was like a few days ago… Anyone hear anything more recent?

They had a last minute delay. The site is in German and the date given is July 30. Though I wouldn't hold them to that.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
They had a last minute delay. The site is in German and the date given is July 30. Though I wouldn't hold them to that.

Oh well - wasn't really expecting it to defy industry standards and release when they said it would. Bet it's at least six months late and releases with lots of bugs, having not been tested, like Legends of Dawn .

I actually don't like this kind of cover, or this style of burlesque heroic fantasy painting much. Especially for the DSA games I thought it was out of place, as the Aventuria setting is a more down to earth kind of fantasy (at least that's how I remember it from my P&P days) - This, for me, is a typical D&D cover, with the overly heroic, cliché, Conan-esque figures, Comic-style postures, and the deliberately weird monster.

I can't say I'm a big "cover guy" - as I really don't give a shit in the vast majority of cases.

This cover looks fine to me, and gives me a nice warm and fuzzy nostalgic feeling.

I've played DSA games - and I find them to be quite similar to most RPGs - as in, lots of fantastical creatures and plenty of magic. I don't see the problem with that cover at all - but I can't say I think it's particularly pretty or aesthetically well done.

Originally Posted by GhanBuriGhan
I actually don't like this kind of cover, or this style of burlesque heroic fantasy painting much. Especially for the DSA games I thought it was out of place, as the Aventuria setting is a more down to earth kind of fantasy (at least that's how I remember it from my P&P days) - This, for me, is a typical D&D cover, with the overly heroic, cliché, Conan-esque figures, Comic-style postures, and the deliberately weird monster.

The style is quite similar to the old… 2nd? 3rd? …old editions anyway. The dwarf and amazon could have been taken right out of the rule books, though yeah the fighter looks a bit too meaty

Yüce had become kind of almost "infamous" for his interpreting of TDE things - for example, his Dwarves never looked like TDE Dwarves. Only like … "small men".
But still - his artwork pretty much defined a huge part of the 2nd & 3rd TDE edition works …

— “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

Originally Posted by Sacred_Path
Also, dat elf has burly thighs. Elves were never burly.

Well that's how you tell elves from half elves isn't it? Half-elves look like Conan, but have pointy ears and silly hats. Full blown elves just get the silly hat and pointy ears without the steroid-abuse inspired physique.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Yüce had become kind of almost "infamous" for his interpreting of TDE things - for example, his Dwarves never looked like TDE Dwarves. Only like … "small men".
But still - his artwork pretty much defined a huge part of the 2nd & 3rd TDE edition works …

True. I guess I am influenced more by the b&w illustrations in the original first edition rulebook, and some of the early adventures, that's what I still associate with DSA most strongly.
Anyway it's just a personal preference and not a big deal, I actually don't pay much attention to covers, and there are plenty of examples for excellent games with horrible cover art. I just remember this case because I bought SOR in a game collection (one of these "20 games super gold box" kinda deals), not even being aware what it was, and didn't touch it for a year because I thought the cover looked cheesy . When I finally fired it up I was surprised at how good the game was, and how different in tone to what the cover had suggested to me. This was before the time I became a more serious CRPG fan, so the Realms of Arkania series was in fact unknown to me back then.